Hellenism and Christian Education

Extract

The Roman poet Ennius said he had three hearts, one Oscan, one Greek, and one Roman. That is to say he was native Italian by birth and upbringing, Greek by education, and Roman by adoption. By what species of co-operation the three worked as one it may be hard to determine; that they did work as one is clear; the poetry of Ennius, or some of it, lives in testimony. Somehow Italian dearness and the Greek inspiration were fused in the Roman mould to a dynamic end. Est locus Hesperiam quam mortales perhibebant… the anthropological elements have been fused in the crucible of history and the poet's magic is whole-hearted and complete. Yet it is a hybrid product, and it must have been hard at times, even for an Ennius, to escape the pain of a divided heart.

A similar sickness and a similar division must beset all scholars nourished on a culture, let me not say alien, but inherited from a past beside which their native tradition is young. I, an Englishman, born and bred in the fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land, I who

have prepared my peace

With learned Italian things

and the proud stones of Greece,

only to find it troubled and broken by the more searching simplicities of Judaea and Christ, how shall I find my spiritual home?

On my study wall is a half-inch Ordnance Map of the Cotswolds. Its greens and browns in subtle half-tones and harmonies epitomize for me days of solid experience in sun and rain and wind and other days walked there only in the mind.